Quiet Crisis

I finally found the time to read Jane Gilbert's paper Developing Narrative-based Approaches to Science Education: Re-thinking an 'Old Discipline' for the 'Knowledge Age' in which she argues that,

…if we continue to teach science in traditional ways, we are unlikely to be able to produce the kinds of 'new' knowers that, the 'knowledge society' literature argues, we need now, and the number of students choosing to study science will continue to decline.

Well that last statement appears accurate! No sooner had I put Jane's paper down than Ray Schroeder links to an article relating a "quiet crisis" in American science education, and closer to home, Stuff reports all too briefly on Walter Erdelen's keynote at the Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF3) in Dunedin last week. Erdelen apparently lamented young people's disinterest in the sciences and held up technology as part of a possible answer. (Any PCF3 attendees reading who can comment more on Erdelen's keynote?)

Meanwhile Jane's answer to science education's "quiet crisis" is pedagogical, specifically the application of two concepts that have been proven useful in other curriculum areas—critical literacy and narrative theory—and both alien concepts to most science educators (including this one, but I'm working on it!).

Update: A not so quiet UK science education crisis.